The Brighter Side of Ugly
by Kelly of the midnight dawn
Summary: A Series or Ugly Americans Post-eps. Mainly Mark/Callie. Please read and review.
1. Chapter 1

**The Brighter Side of Ugly**

**Wet Hot Demonic Summer**

**Disclaimer: I do not own Ugly Americans. Though I wish I did because if I did I would go to FX and to Netflix and to ScyFy and everywhere else I could think of to get it back on the air. I really hope that Devin Clark is doing that. This show has so much promise left in it and potential for character development that I hope someone picks it up and it comes back, maybe with longer seasons and less wait between groupings of new episodes.**

**A/N: Since I've stalled on "Love or Life" for the time being and there's been such a lack of new UA Fanfiction of late, I thought I'd do a series of post-eps showing the relationship between Mark and Callie otherwise known as the heart of the show. I put it out there right now that I am a hopeless romantic and these may be a little too mushy for your taste. If you don't like it, I dare you to write something you consider better. Seriously, we need to beef up the UA Fanfiction section. I hope you enjoy my first post-ep.**

Mark Lilly was gullible. But he was very aware that he was gullible. Of course in hind sight all things were so much clearer. He had gone back to the apartment alone and locked himself in his room, Randal didn't notice that he wasn't being very talkative.

He mentally kicked himself over and over again for not realizing that he was being used. He had to be the biggest idiot on the planet. Or at least the biggest idiot in all of New York. Things made sense now that hadn't added up before but he'd been too excited about being a camp councilor again that he'd allowed himself to get carried away.

He was always getting carried away like that. It was one of his many faults. He spent most of his life trying to ignore his own shortcomings in the pursuit of helping others but every once in a while those shortcomings became painfully obvious, so much so that he felt as though he needed to reevaluate his entire life and the choices he'd made.

He was feeling particularly low. Leonard had almost been killed, along with a lot of other wizards. He didn't like knowing thast he'd been used. He threw himself back against the pillows on his bed and shut his eyes, hoping that a good night's sleep might erase some of the guilt but knowing it probably wouldn't.

Only a few moments later there was a tap on his window. He rolled over and opened his eyes just a crack. He groaned as he saw Callie waiting expectantly. She was perhaps one of the last people he wanted to see at that moment. He sighed and sat up. If he didn't let her in she'd find a way and he'd only succeed in incurring her wrath.

He opened the window and allowed his girlfriend to enter the room before returning to the bed. He rolled onto his side so that he was facing away from her. He wasn't in the mood for sex. He wasn't in the mood for her.

Callie was uncharacteristically slow to approach the bed. When she did she sat carefully on the edge. She remained silent for a long time. She wasn't stupid. She knew that using her boyfriend in this way, with the intent to cause mass mayhem, was something he wouldn't appreciate. But what could she have done about it, denied her father? She was torn between two worlds. But only recently, since she'd become involved with Mark, had she truly felt that she even belonged to the human world in any part.

Slowly she stretched out on the bed beside him and tapped his shoulder. He didn't so much as acknowledge her. Part of her wanted to hit him, lash out, to be just as violent and abusive as she could. After all, who was he to make her feel guilt? How dare he make her feel as if she owed him an explanation for what she'd done?

But she couldn't. She knew she couldn't take her frustrations out on him, not right now at least. She took a deep breath and attempted to start a conversation "Did all your students get home alright?" she decided on a neutral topic, not that she cared about any of Mark's students but she knew that he did and that might just be enough to get him to talk.

"Yeah," he answered noncommittally, still facing away from her. He knew she didn't give a crap about the topic and he didn't give a crap about her attempt to make conversation.

The air in the room seemed incredibly thick and heavy to Callie at that moment. She reached out and grabbed Mark's shoulder. Gently at first she tried to turn him to face her. When he resisted and shrugged her off she forced him onto his back and strattled him.

She stared down into his face in the glow cast by the city outside. His face was unusually blank, it rattled her, more than she cared to admit. He showed no sign of excitement at the closeness of their bodies, no twinge of fear from not knowing what she'd do next and most terrifying to her, no love. There was no love in his eyes. His eyes always held a certain sparkle when he looked at her that Callie didn't realize until that minute that she desired almost more than the sex.

She almost backed down, she almost walked away. But it wasn't in her nature to give up. So she took a deep breath "What was I supposed to do?" she asked, her eyes clenching shut, no longer able to look at him.

"You could have warned me," he suggested, his voice low and even.

Callie shook her head "Yeah, because that would have gone over so well with Daddy…" she sighed and then added "Anyway, I sort of did…"

"When it was already too late," Mark pointed out.

Callie rolled off of Mark and stretched out beside him again, daring to reach an arm across his chest to keep him from rolling away from her. "I don't have a choice in these things Mark," she told him.

He propped himself up on his elbow and looked at her. His expression had morphed from nonexistent to unreadable "You can always choose," he told her firmly.

Callie wasn't sure she'd ever heard him speak with such conviction before and it made a chill run down her spine. She knew she could choose but she was also aware that in wanting to choose she was admitting that everything that she'd grown up believing wasn't as right as she'd once thought.

"It's complicated," she replied.

Mark nodded in the near darkness and made a move to wrap his arms around her. He knew it was complicated for her. He knew that just in her deciding to remain involved with him was a source of internal conflict for her. "One day it won't be," he assured her softly.

Callie wanted to laugh. Things would never be simple for her again. She smiled faintly and opened her eyes. Her gaze caught his and her smile grew as her heart, tiny as she claimed it was, swelled with happiness. She'd caught that special glint in his eyes.

They didn't end up having sex that night. Instead Callie fell asleep in Mark's arms, feeling safe and protected. She knew things would never be simple but it didn't matter because she was loved.

**A/N: So there you have it, just over a thousand words and the first thing I've posted in months. I will take requests for the post-ep I should right next but I must tell you right now that I will not write any post-eps for "Soulsucker" because Moonchild10 already wrote one called "Human" which I would never dare to top.**


	2. Lilly and the Beast

**The Brighter Side of Ugly**

Lilly and the Beast

**A/N: My thanks to Kuroi Kage X for reviewing my first post-ep. And here is the requested post-ep for "Lilly and the Beast". It may be sappy, it may not make too much sense, it may have a few plot holes you could drive a truck through but it's the best I could do. It is several weeks later than I had at first promised but stuff happened. I published a Castle oneshot and my brain was flooded with story ideas that I needed to jot down… Anyway, here's the next installment of "The Brighter Side of Ugly"  
**  
Callie lay awake that night, with Mark fast asleep beside her. She kept reaching out to touch him every few minutes to assure herself that he was really there. Of course she would never let him know how concern she really was but since he was asleep she allowed herself the gentle touches to ease her mind.

After she'd e silver him a game of UNO they'd moved to the bedroom. Callie had been anything but gentle then. She'd been desperate to reassert her dominance of him. She knew that he and Jackie hadn't actually had sex but she felt as if she needed to reclaim her territory.

He'd still been bruised and battered from his ordeal but he hadn't complained though she had left him with more than one flesh wound that had bled. She didn't quite understand his compliance but she wasn't really going to question it.

Now that he was unconscious she was gentle, gentler than she'd ever thought she could be, as she ran her fingers through his hair, rubbed his shoulder and intertwined her fingers with his. She couldn't explain why she felt the need to keep these loving gestures secret from him. She supposed it was about power, she needed to like she had control of everything.

Mark was just one part of her life she needed to exercise control over. He was actually the easiest thing in her life to control. There were days when she felt like Mark was the only thing in her life not completely out of control. Today had not been one if those days.

She'd started off the day feeling insecure. Trying to make herself more appealing to her boyfriend than his old college flame. That insecurity had quickly turned to fear as she learned of Mark's abduction, finding out his college girlfriend was a dangerous she-beast. Then there had been relief, finding Mark alive.

And finally after getting her ass handed to her by said she-beast, being rendered, however temporarily, completely helpless and hearing Mark's confession that he fell for her as she was, she was desperate to feel some sort of control over something (her emotions, the situation, anything) that she'd offered a callous reply to Mark's heartfelt speech, wanting nothing more than to be out of the sewer and away from all that it was quickly coming to symbolize for her.

So they had come to an understanding of sorts earlier that evening. Mark would come to some sort of understanding about her numerous, anonymous, sexual partners with the knowledge that he was always first on her list. And he would never invite another girl home or Callie would murder them both. And yes Callie realized that this was a rather one sided compromise but once again it was all about the power. She was pretty sure nothing would actually make her kill Mark but as long as he believed she would, it would keep him in line.

She was exhausted and tried to sleep but found it nearly impossible. After a few more touches to assure herself once more that Mark was indeed still there and still alive, she finally allowed her eyes to drift closed.

Only minutes after sleep finally took over Mark awoke. He looked immediately to where Callie lay to assure Himself that she was still there. He had, however inadvertently, almost gotten her killed. It had been her plan to fight for him as she was. But it had been his treatment if her over the last couple days that had precipitated that decision.

He allowed himself only the visual assurance of her presence, tracing her outline in the light from the street. He wasn't sure how deeply asleep she was and even a gentle touch might snap her into wakefulness and enrage her.

He got up to go to the bathroom. He stared at himself in the mirror for a long time. He had learned a lot about himself in the past few days. First and foremost: he was a gigantic dick. What he'd unintentionally done to Jacqueline... Well maybe the guilt he felt over that would lessen in time. Probably not.

He had to be careful. As a counselor he knew how this pattern of thinking could lead down a path of depression and self loathing. Guilt was an all consuming thing that could drag anyone under if they dwelled upon it too long. So he forced himself to look at the situation as if he were trying to help one of his students through it.

Jackie seemed strangely happy with the way she was. And Grimes seemed happy too. Mark found an unbidden image forming in his mind if the two of them together. He shook his head quickly as he tried to banish the image.

Somehow he now felt better about Jackie but also slightly nauseous.

At that moment he thought he heard a noise from the bedroom. Cautiously he made his way back to bed. He had no fear of a burglar but he did worry about startling Callie. When he pulled back the covers he saw her rolled over almost entirely onto his side of the bed.

He climbed in, careful not to disturb her but as soon as he was lying beside her he heard her mumbling in her sleep. He tilted his head in an effort to make out what she was saying and he thought he could hear his name. He propped himself up on his elbow to watch her. Suddenly her eyes popped open and she flung herself at him.

"Callie?" He questioned even as his arms wrapped around her in return. "Something wrong?"

She pulled away from him,

Rolling out of his embrace "Nothing," she answered quickly.

"Liar," Mark muttered.

"Shut up," she countered but her tone was not so harsh that he felt she would retaliate if he pressed the issue.

"Callie," he nudged her with his shoulder just slightly.

"Go to sleep Mark," she replied.

Mark reached out and pulled her closer to him "I know when something's bothering you," he probed, knowing that he'd have to pull back soon if he didn't want to enrage her.

"What's bothering me right now is you," Callie countered.

Mark recognized the first warning signs that it was time to back off. He smiled softly and kissed Callie "Alright, but if you want to talk about it, I'm always here."

Then he drifted off to sleep with his arms wrapped protectively around her. Callie didn't bother to pull away. She nestled against him and allowed herself to fall back asleep. He was always there. He had always been there. And she loved him for it.

That was the night that Callie Maggotbone decided that she was done sleeping around. She would show Mark the same faithfulness that he showed her. She just wasn't going to let him know about it.

**A/N: Well, I hope you liked it. I'm going to write a post-ep for "Callie and Her Sister" next. Though I'll still take requests for future oneshots. This site really needs more Ugly Americans fanfics so I encourage everyone to publish something, no matter how OOC or badly grammatic it it (though spell check doesn't hurt). And for that matter I believe the entire world needs an entire third season (and maybe a forth and fifth) of Ugly Americans. I encourage anyone reading this to tweet ComedyCentral with the hashtag #BringBackUglyAmericans.**


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